Remembering the One - Utah Division of State History

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SPECIAL EDITION FOR SUBSCRIBERS OFDESERET NEWS AND THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

AUGUST 2019

A SALUTE TO UTAH’S VETERANS AND MILITARY

Remembering the OneHonoring Our Heroes 365 Days a Year

ALSO:Ghost Army is Secret No More Salina Camp: Massacre at Midnight300th MI: Playing the ‘Varsity Team’

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on the cover: Honor365 recognized 12 local veterans at the 2019 Real Salt Lake Independence Day game. photo courtesy honor365

UTAH MEDIA GROUP / 4770 South 5600 West, West Valley City UT 84118 / utahmediagroup.com To subscribe: 801-204-6100 / To advertise: 801-204-6300

PROJECT TEAM / Brent Low, Publisher / Megan Donio, Publications Manager / Michelle Bridges, Project Editor / Utah Media Group Creative

VALOR: A Salute to Utah’s Veterans and Military is a publication of Utah Media Group and distributed in partnership with Deseret News and The Salt Lake Tribune. Copyright ©august 2019. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any format without consent of Utah Media Group. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication and assume no liability for errors, inaccuracies or omissions.

WWW.UTAHVALOR.COM

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ContentsUtah History Day Program Ghost Army is Secret No More pages 6-13

WWII POWs: Death at Salina Camp Massacre at Midnight pages 14-21

300th Military Intelligence ‘Playing the Varsity Team’ pages 22-27

DEPARTMENTSThe Briefing: Vet Centers — 40 Years of Services / 4-5

Service and Sacrifice: Honor 365 / 4-5

WWII Talks: Stanley Nance : It was Deceiving / 10

WWII Talks: Earl Jacklin: It was Critical / 20

R&R: OHVing — Down and Dirty / 28-29

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Madeline Christianson with her great grandfather, Stanley Nance, in the office of Rep. Ben McAdams being recogonized for the efforts to bring attention to the “Ghost Army” of World War II — Madeline for winning the WWII History Prize in Washington, D.C., at National History Day 2019, and Nance for being part of the top-secret unit. Nance is one of the last known surviving members of the unit. McAdams read the Ghost Army’s efforts into the Congressional Record. photo courtesy christianson family


T he two paused breathlessly for the next words to be spoken. The course of their lives could hinge on what came next. For him, it signaled a leap into the unknown.

For her, it could mean victory for herself and for a little-told story.

• • •

He saw the two-and-a-half-ton truck roll unexpectedly into his Army training camp in California’s Mojave Desert. Sensing that this was more than a social call, he moved nervously to reach the vehicle first.

“Are you Nance?” the uniformed driver asked.

“Yes,” replied the handsome and muscular young soldier, puzzled. His first name, Stanley, had been used rarely in the months since he was drafted into the U.S. Army in late 1942. His country had been at war for more than a year.

“Then get your equipment and come with me,” the man urged. “I have orders to take you to Pasadena by 0900 tomorrow morning.”

Moments later, he and the driver jumped into the deuce-and-a-half — how it is known to soldiers then and now — and sped to the greener confines of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in order for Nance to report on time.

• • •

Half a continent away, she waited in the Xfinity Center in College Park, Maryland. The arena was filled with high schoolers, teachers and parents. The announcer was about to declare a winner. The contestant had been here once before but had come away empty-handed.

But not on this day, she thought. In a moment she recalled the hundreds of hours of work — the research, the interviews, the trip to Europe and the agonizing over just the right words to tell the story of someone she admired and loved — and the book on a coffee table that gave her the idea in the first place.

“Madeline Christianson.”

Hearing those words snapped her back to the present. That’s my name! And the tall, brown-eyed 15-year-old flew down the aisle and up the stage steps — throwing in a victory twirl for good measure — to claim her prize medal amid the thunderous applause of fellow contestants and judges.

• • •

Not only were Stanley and Madeline in different places — 2,600 miles apart, approximately — but 75 years also separated the two at the moment they heard those life-changing words in the form of their own names. Two things had brought them

GHOST ARMY: A SECRET NO MORE

TRIUMPH, TRAGEDY AND A BRIDGE ACROSS THE GENERATIONS

by Hank McIntire for valor magazine

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I thought the Japanese were crazy for bombing Pearl Harbor. I knew the United States was the strongest nation in the world, and any nation that taunted us would be very, very sorry. I was working

and newly married, so I thought little of going to war. Helen and I never imagined we’d be separated. I was 24 years old when drafted in October 1942.

I processed through Fort Douglas and went to Camp Polk, Louisiana, for basic training with the 42nd Armored Regiment of the 11th Armored Division. The first thing we were assigned was to run the mile obstacle course. I came in ahead of everybody — exactly seven minutes. The captain told me I’d broken the course record. Within a month, I made corporal. The general of the 11th Armored Division sent a letter to my wife congratulating me — I still have that letter.

The Army sent me to radio school in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and I loved it there. At the end of nine weeks, I went to pick up my materials from my desk. I remember being alone in the study room when an instructor

came and said, “Nance, you’ve graduated with the highest honor.” I was a 399 high-speed operator of Morse code. My score was 766 — receiving, composing and sending a message — which is around 65 words a minute.

Now most people relay Morse code using a tap-tap-tap technique — up and down, up and down, with their whole arm. I found that if I rotated my wrist sideways and strummed I could send messages much quicker. I adapted my technique from playing the ukulele while as a missionary in Tahiti before being drafted.

I was assigned to the half-track in my unit. We went on maneuvers in Mojave Desert in California. After a busy night of training, my unit

was resting in the thickets. Suddenly, a Jeep rushed into the compound throwing gravel around. A guy leaned out and hollered, “You have a person here by the name of Nance?” “He’s in the half-track,” someone shouted back. He told me he had to have me in Pasadena by nine-o’clock the next morning. We made it. Standing just inside the front door of a large room filled with a dozen desks and people in uniform, a man some distance away motioned me forward and handed me a white envelope. “Here’s your ticket to Tennessee.” I went solo all the way back to Camp Forrest. After being picked up at the train depot, I told my ride I needed to call my wife and tell her I had changed locations. He said the Army would take care of that.

In the barracks about 100 men were seated in a large assembly room. I remember one officer making this statement: “If there’s anyone here that can’t keep a secret, there’s the door.” I knew something was up. They explained we were now part of a secret outfit and would remain in it for the duration of the war. Not an hour went by before someone would remind us that what we were doing was top secret. We weren’t to talk amongst ourselves about anything we saw going around us; we were to keep quiet. So we did.

I was assigned a powerful one-half-ton truck covered with a canvas top. It was usually used as a weapons carrier for the battalion. In the back it had a desk across the front with a 399-radio set and a key

STANLEY NANCEU.S. ARMY

RADIO OPERATOR

WWII TALKS

I WAS THERE. IT WAS DECEIVING.MY MILITARY SERVICE WAS ONE BIG SECRET.

sitting on top. The first thing they taught me was how to rev up the motor to get the specific power to transmit. I would take a regular lead pencil, go out and check the distance between my antenna and the arc. If it was between three-and-a-half to four inches, the generator was producing the right power at 750 watts. I knew my SCR-399 and could operate it very, very quickly.

From Tennessee our signing off place was Camp Kilmer, New York. We were put on a boat and took two weeks to cross to England. When we arrived in Bristol, dockworkers saw all these men out on deck and with either sergeant or corporal insignias on our arm. One guy shouted out, “Who’s driving the boat?” One of ours returned, “The privates.” We had a lot of fun joshing.

In England, I came upon a straw mattress and threw it in the back of my truck and it stayed with me throughout the war. I slept in the truck all the time — it was my home in the war. My truck was a solo truck, rarely with other vehicles. I was a solo operator assigned to various places mainly to observe enemy positions and maneuvers. I drove all over France, Germany, Belgium and Holland.

We were trained to mimic the particular unit we were impersonating. I would sit in the “real” vehicle, watch the radio operator and practice until I could take over his transmission. When I was set, I would key in the operation of my radio so I had the right tower. Normally, after dark the 5th Armored Division would move out and the engineering group would move in with the “dummies.” They would take out their bales of rubber, inflate them with the generators, and place them in the same areas as the tanks (and artillery) had been previously. We could be all set up to look exactly like the unit we were replacing in an hour-and-a-half. From the sky the next morning, German surveillance would look down and see everything in place. Everything was fake except for my radio. My transmissions from my group to headquarters to other units of the Ghost Army coordinated with every division in that particular operation.

We weren’t allowed to have cameras so there are few pictures of me. While in Seton, Holland, my company commander, Czinsky, took this photo of me by my truck but I never saw or heard anything about it until after the war. We were in an area where we were relaxing for a couple of days and the men started talking about their wives. I happened to say my wife was the most beautiful of any. I got a lot of flack so each of us placed a picture of our girl on the desk — there were about a dozen. We asked several officers to come and judge them and my wife took it all the way. Czinsky was very knowledgeable of my wife because I talked about her all the time. When he gave me the picture, he said, “Nance, I took this picture to send to your wife because I didn’t think you were going home.”

I couldn’t tell my wife anything. I sent letters home and was astounded when she would write back and say a razor had been taken to them and things were cut out. But we had a code. For example, one of them was that my elder sister’s husband’s father owned the Dutch Holland Bakery in Salt Lake. So any time I wanted to tell Helen I was in Holland, I would say, “I’m now standing in the doorway of Hanson’s Bakery.” And she would know all was well.

—BY DAVID CORDERO FOR VALOR


(ABOVE) Stanley Nance kept the “secrets” of the “ghost army” for nearly 75 years. Nance was the unit’s “high speed radio operator” and worked from a truck equipped with a customized radio capable of transmitting halfway around the world. (BELOW) Nance explains that since the unit had to imitate actual units in the field, each member carried a sewing kit and multiple insigna, both stitched and painted, that had to be changed out often. Members were not suppose to keep written records of their operations, but many found a way — Nance wrote his down in a German language field handbook. photos courtesy christianson family

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minutes. Within a month he was made a TEC4 (Technician Fourth Grade), the equivalent of a corporal.

His next stop was Fort Knox, Kentucky, for radio-operator school with 315 soldiers in his class. “I spent nine weeks there and loved it,” said Nance. “I learned Morse code and the mechanics of the 766 radio.” One day after training, as Nance recalled with great emotion, he was alone in the classroom when his instructor came in and told him that he had the highest honors in the entire class.

After radio school Nance was assigned to a half-track, a vehicle with wheels on the front and tank-like tracks on the back. He trained with his tank unit in Louisiana and Texas before going to the Mojave Desert in California. He and his peers were preparing to join Allied forces in North Africa. It was there in the high desert of California that Nance was picked up by a driver and taken to Pasadena.

The next morning Nance reported as ordered. An officer handed him an envelope and said, “Here’s your ticket to Tennessee.”

“What’s this all about?” asked Nance.

“Don’t you know?” said the officer. “I don’t.”

Days later the mystery was solved to some degree when Nance and a hundred other men gathered at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, for an orientation.

together. One was simply genetics: Stanley was Madeline’s great-grandfather. The other was that she had learned he was a member of the Ghost Army, and Madeline had selected that unit, officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, as the topic of her entry for National History Day 2019 in the World War II History (senior) category.

CIVILIAN TO SOLDIEROn December 7, 1941, Nance and his bride, Helen, lived in

Salt Lake City. He worked for the Utah and Idaho School Supply Company filling orders and boxing textbooks to send to schools. The attack that took place on that infamous Sunday morning quickly mobilized America’s might and will. Many citizens knew immediately that they would be connected in some way to the war effort. Nance, on the other hand, believed otherwise.

“After Pearl Harbor I had no feeling that I would be involved,” he said. “I thought the Japanese were crazy to bomb us. I was newly married, and it was possible that I wouldn’t even go.”

That possibility shrank rapidly as millions of troops were needed. Nance was drafted into the Army in October 1942 to serve in the 11th Armored Division. He left Salt Lake City for Camp Polk, Louisiana, for basic training. Nance’s superiors saw promise in him early on as he broke the camp record for the one-mile obstacle course, crossing the finish line in just over seven

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War (history.com). And in late 1942 British forces used dummy tanks and fake radio transmissions in Operation Bertram to trick Rommel and his German forces in Egypt into believing that an Allied attack would come later and in a different location than when and where it actually occurred (historyofwar.org).

According to Nance, actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., a U.S. Naval Reserve officer, suggested to the War Department the idea of an American unit dedicated to deception. Secretary of War Henry Stimson stood up the unit in a short amount of time, handpicking each member of the unit, “including me,” said Nance.

“There was no time to train people up,” Nance explained. “He had to steal the people he needed. Stimson saw that I was a high-speed radio operator. It even says ‘high-speed’ in my record.”

“High-speed” not only meant that Nance was good at his job, but he was also the fastest Morse code operator, due to a novel technique that he developed himself. Other operators kept their forearms flat on the table and used an up-and-down-tapping motion to plink out their messages. However, Nance rotated his forearm 90 degrees to the right and used his wrist in a sideways strumming motion that he adapted from playing the ukulele during his missionary days in Tahiti before the war.

While Nance’s unit would roll in with its trucks carrying 90-pound bundles that contained inflatable vehicles, along with compressors, sound speakers and pyrotechnics, his role was to

The leader’s first words to the men got Nance’s attention. “If there is anyone here who can’t keep a secret, there’s the door.”

No one moved.

A SECRET ARMY “I found that I was part of a newly formed secret army,” said

Nance. He became one of 1,100 members of the 23rd Army Headquarters Special Troops. The mission of this one-of-a-kind unit was to impersonate other U.S. military units in Luxembourg, Germany, France and other European countries to make the enemy believe that numbers of Allied forces were larger and more dispersed than they actually were.

The idea of such a force was not new. Combatants had used trickery against enemies for centuries. The term Trojan horse harks back to battle of Troy, where enemy Greeks hid soldiers inside a large, wooden horse to attack once the horse had been brought into the city. “All warfare is based on deception,” wrote Sun Tzu, a Chinese general and military strategist, more than 2,500 years ago. “When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near” (“The Art of War”).

For example, Col. William Washington, a cousin to George, used a pine log to pass for a cannon — nicknamed Quaker guns, in reference to the pacifist sect — to secure the surrender of Loyalist troops without firing a shot during the Revolutionary

The Ghost Army, officially the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, an elite force whose specialty was tactical deception, was a matter of military secrecy until its declassification in 1996. (ABOVE) A Ghost Army trooper paints an inflatable rubber tank modeled on an M-4 Sherman, parked next to the dummy tank. (RIGHT) To complete the experience, the unit also used sonic deception, helped by engineers from Bell Labs. The team recorded sounds of various units onto a series of sound-effects records, each up to 30 minutes long. The sounds were recorded on state-of-the-art equipment, and then played back with powerful amplifiers and speakers that could be heard 15 miles away. (TOP LEFT) This aerial view shows the attention to detail was critical. Inflatable dummy tanks and trucks set up near the Rhine River in Germany. Bulldozers were used to make tank tracks leading up to where the 93-pound inflatable dummies stood. Real artillery shells were tossed around fake guns. (FAR LEFT) Even “dummies” were created to impersonate soldiers in the field. (LEFT) Soldiers lift up an inflatable rubber dummy tank in England. photos courtesy christianson family / the ghost army legacy project


work with the radio operator of the combat unit. He observed each of his counterpart’s movements and then mimicked exactly how he sent messages and used the exact same protocols so that the enemy could not tell the difference. From start to finish, the 23rd could replace an existing unit in about 90 minutes, including uniform insignias and vehicle markings, said Nance.

The 23rd got its nickname, the Ghost Army, not from its members or Allied troops, but from German soldiers in their postwar descriptions of scenarios where American units were in one place in the morning and in another in the afternoon, appearing and disappearing like ghosts. Many have since suggested that the unit was responsible for minimizing casualties because the enemy often opted not to attack, fearing that Allied forces outnumbered them. “And that was the whole point of the Ghost Army,” said Nance. “If just one of my radio messages changed the tide of battle to where one mother or one new bride was spared from putting a gold star in their front window, that was what the 23rd was all about.”

‘I CAUGHT THE BUG’It was Rick Beyer’s, “The Ghost Army of World War II,” the

best-known book that tells the story of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, that first got the attention of then-eighth-grader Madeline Christianson. “I was at my great-grandpa’s 100th birthday party, and Rick’s book was on the coffee table,” Madeline recalled. “And I caught the bug.”

Nance had said little to his family over the years about his time in the Army. He and his fellow soldiers had been told repeatedly not to keep diaries or tell anyone about the mission of the 23rd. In 1972 his 14-year-old daughter Janae asked, “Dad, what did you do in the war?” Nance proceeded to give her a detailed description of what he and his unit actually did, including, “I blew up tanks.” She paused, wide-eyed, and said, “Dad, you didn’t really do that.”

“It was too out of hand to believe,” admitted Nance. “So I didn’t say any more about it. After that I just told people I was a high-speed radio operator. Not even my wife ever knew what I really did.”

When Madeline started asking questions, however, Nance willingly opened up. The Army had declassified much of its information on the 23rd in 1996, more than 50 years after the war, and veterans of the unit began to share their experiences.

As a ninth-grader at Lakeridge Junior High in Orem, Madeline made the Ghost Army her topic for the National History Day competition. For NHD, students begin at the local level, and winners move on to state, regional and national contests. As a seventh-grader Madeline made it all the way to the top in College Park, with her choice of topic of the Daughters of Liberty, a group of women in Colonial America who banded together to protest British taxation. She didn’t place but was back the next year with a new topic, Prohibition. Madeline topped out at the state level and was hungry to make it all the way in 2019.

Madeline credits her history and English teachers, James Romrell and Blake Longmore, with mentoring, coaching and inspiring her from seventh grade on. But it would take more than inspiration to make it back to nationals with the intense requirements for each entry.

According to Madeline, this “giant” history project could be anything related to the year’s theme, Triumph and Tragedy. The requirements included 10 primary and 10 secondary sources. Also required was a 30-page annotated bibliography, which is a listing of sources with a summation and description of each source. Said Michelle Christianson, Madeline’s mother and proofreader, “She was doing college-level work.”

Besides the book work she completed for her study, Madeline toured Ghost Army “battle” sites in five countries in Europe with her mother. On the trip Madeline became quite close to the only Ghost Army vet on the tour, Bernie Bluestein, of Chicago, whom she calls “Grandpa Bernie.” And with Rick Beyer’s help she also connected with eight of the remaining 15 veterans of the 1,100-member Ghost Army via Skype or telephone.

Contestants for NHD were also required to create a display to summarize their project in a maximum of 500 words. Up till three days before the cross-country drive from Utah to Maryland, “it was all sticky notes and index cards,” said Madeline. In 72 hours, with guidance from mentor Steve Olsen, managing director and senior curator with the LDS Church History Department in Salt Lake City, Madeline rewrote and reworked her entire display, which included text, photographs and maps to describe the Ghost Army’s history and mission. And to highlight the trademark tactics of the 23rd, she printed some of the captions in a special ink that only appeared under black light, controlled by a switch on the phone-booth-like display.

During nationals, Utah students toured the U.S. Capitol and met with representatives of the Utah delegation. Madeline talked to them about the Ghost Army and asked them to co-sponsor a bill for the Ghost Army to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor so these men can finally get the recognition they’ve certainly earned. umg photo / michelle bridges

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CONNECTING PAST AND PRESENTOn the drive home after taking top honors in the World

War II History category at NHD, Madeline and Mom visited in person with six of the eight Ghost Army veterans she had interviewed for her project. “These veterans were big role models for me,” Madeline said. “They were humble about it, but yet proud of what they have done. I sent them thank-you notes.”

Mom, Michelle, observed Madeline every step of the way on this project and gained a greater respect for her grandfather-in-law, other members of the Ghost Army, and her daughter. “These soldiers considered themselves a traveling road show: actors, props, staging — so full of character,” she said. “There was a comedic aspect to all of this. It was a bunch of American guys fighting Germans with pointy sticks. And Madeline is teaching these stories to the next generation. She is seeing different viewpoints, and she is more grateful.”

After all this, Madeline sees her nation and her future much differently too. “In Europe I saw people who were so grateful for America,” she reflected. “They fly American flags next to their own. I’ve become more proud of our country.” She is now considering history as a career and an internship with the Ghost Army Legacy Project. She has new tools to use in pursuing her education, ideally, at Harvard. “I’m a lot more college-prepared, and I’ve acquired the grit you need to do well.”

Madeline is excited for the new Ghost Army exhibit that will open at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans in 2020, as well as the planned movie about her great-grandfather’s unit, starring and directed by Ben Affleck. She is also pushing for formal recognition that members of the Ghost Army have

yet to receive. Among her allies is Ben McAdams, member of Congress from Utah’s Fourth District, who entered the story of the Ghost Army in the Congressional Record. “[This is] a story of skill, courage and triumph, unique in the annals of history,” said McAdams when he met Nance and Madeline in person at his West Jordan office in July 2019.

Like Madeline, Nance has his own sacred memory of an expression of gratitude. One day in France, he was invited into a house for a drink with a farmer and his wife. Nance mused that his Tahitian French came in handy that day. He was offered wine but asked for milk. While the wife poured, the husband stepped briefly into another room, returned, and pressed a small object into Nance’s hand. It was the farmer’s World War I medal. The man gave him a bear hug and kissed him on both cheeks. “This is for liberating the French nation,” the farmer said. Nance choked up as he recalled the exchange. “That medal meant more to me than any decoration I received,” he said.

When asked what his great-granddaughter’s project has meant to him, Nance looked at Madeline across the room, his eyes moist. “I don’t have the words for that. I’m amazed that anyone in my family would get into it so deeply. She has a talent.”

As for Madeline, her debt to her great-grandfather and his peers has only been repaid in part. “None of these men knew the whole picture; being able to tell it to them was half the fun,” she said. “They are personal to me now,” she said. “It’s my calling to let people know about the Ghost Army.”

Hank McIntire served 26 years from 1988 to 2014 with the Utah Army National Guard and U.S. Army in both Military Intelligence and Public Affairs. He is a free-lance writer and communication consultant.

Madeline and Mom Michelle toured Ghost Army “battle” sites in five countries in Europe. And grandpa Nance tagged-along in spirit and photo. At the site of Operation Elephant in France, the first operation the Ghost Army participated in, Madeline recalled a story told by Arthur Shilstone, one of the veterans she visited: Two Frenchmen were walking by and saw four Ghost Army men carrying a “tank” across the road. Seeing their wide eyes, he remarked “The Americans are very strong.” photo courtesy christianson family


IF YOU GO:UTAH HISTORY DAY AT THE MUSEUM10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019 Fort Douglas Military Museum, 32 Potter St., SLC, UT 84113

Come visit and learn more about Utah History Day and the military history research you can do at museums and archives. This is a FREE family-friendly event.

This year was an especially successful year for Utah’s National History Day team — with two military history projects winning Outstanding Junior Project at History Day Nationals and one project winning the WWII History Prize in Washington, D.C. We want to feature these students’ hard work and provide interested students with information about Utah History Day and how they can do military history research at museums and archives in general.

Projects from 2018-19 school year that will be featured are:

EXHIBITS: ”The Ghost Army” by Madeline Christianson, Lakeridge Junior High (Orem)

“Gallipoli: Triumph and Tragedy” by Jack Bulf, Aidan Mulligan, St. John the Baptist Middle School (Draper)

DOCUMENTARY: “Fritz Haber: Feeding the World and Warfare” by Jacob Simmons, Brighton High School (Sandy)

WEBSITES: “Somme: The Triumph Hidden Within the Tragedy” by Daniel Jin, Dinyu Wang, Lava Ridge Intermediate School (St. George)

UTAH HISTORY DAY LETS STUDENTS DISCOVER THE POWER OF HISTORY IN THE PRESENT

Utah History Day gives students the tools to learn history by “doing history,” bringing it to life for youth from 4th through 12th grades. For the 2019-2020 school year, students will research topics that relate to the theme “Breaking Barriers in History.”

Topics can range from military and political history to science, technology, social, cultural, intellectual history or the arts, and can focus on Utah, American, European or World history. “Each year, we see a staggering range of projects, from the Manhattan Project to Thalidomide, from China’s Cultural Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement,” said Wendy Rex-Atzet says, state coordinator for UHD.

After choosing a topic that matters to them, students conduct extensive historical research using libraries and archives, finding documents, images and artifacts from the past. They then present their research creatively during spring competitions.

“The projects students create amaze me each and every year. I have seen a myriad of topics catered to each kids’ interest. Also, living in a rural area doesn’t detract from the student’s eagerness to track down a difficult source. I have witnessed students interview astronauts, contact museum curators and college professors, and search through hours of microfilm,” said Chris Sweeney, history teacher at Carbon High School in Price. “Watching their faces light

up after finally locating a long sought after book is truly a wonderful treat!”

Students with a passion for technology can create a website or a documentary film. Those who love art often create exhibits. Young performers can showcase their work through original performances,

and writers can create a research paper. Through this process, young people not only discover the relevance of history to their own lives, they also build vital skills in research, critical thinking, civic literacy, and creative presentation.

“I count myself lucky to have been on both sides of National History Day. Thirty years ago, I completed a UHD project that started my journey into becoming the history lover I am today,” said Sweeny. “Now as teacher myself, I definitely understand the value that UHD program brings to my classroom. History comes to life as students no longer depend on me to force feed them a lecture with an accompanying textbook. They find a topic that interests them and that captivates their minds and drives them to never stop searching for more knowledge.”

Rex-Atzet adds, “I absolutely love this program and the way it empowers students to take ownership of their learning and discover the power of history in the present!”

Utah History Day is free and open to students statewide. While most students do these projects under a teacher or school program, independent students are welcome. Visit our website to find helpful resources and locate the program nearest you: history.utah.gov/utah-history-day. For more information please contact [email protected].

—BY MICHELLE BRIDGES FOR VALOR

Remembering the One - Utah Division of State History

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